Friedman’s Cute Terms

Looking at Egypt’s three revolutions from 30,000 feet brought out Tom Friedman is at his best in this morning’s Times. After two paragraphs explaining the three revolutions, beginning with Mubarak, Friedman summarized them in these cute terms perfectly. Egypt’s first revolution was to get rid of the dead hand, the second revolution was to get rid of the deadheads and the third revolution was to escape from the dead end. As Friedman explains, the first revolution was by mostly “non-Islamist” Egyptian youths who were fed-up with the suffocating dead hand of Mubarak.They got rid of the military deadheads who replaced Mubarak with a vote for just about anybody but the military. Thus Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood took the reins.Then, recognizing that the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood were more interested in consolidating their grip on Egypt and the government than in governing, the Egyptians got back in the streets and virtually begged the military to take the government away from Morsi and his ilk.There’s no question that defining the right path for a nation, when you’ve really never experienced your own democracy is really messy. And the Egyptians have proved that.But’s typically helpful about this kind of turnover, and it’s now obvious in Egypt, is that outsiders and even some Egyptians have a much clearer understanding of their nation’s needs. Egypt will need to make far better economic decisions and become much more inclusive with its political parties. Guess what happens next. Only Allah knows and thus far He hasn’t revealed the scenario.Flickr photo: JohnlVogel
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